5,000 BeautifulPeople get shunned for gaining Holiday weight

I’ve heard of getting yourself booted from social networking sites for violating terms of use, but would you ever think you could get kicked-off a social website for just gaining a few pounds over the holidays? As ridiculous as it sounds, one website recently booted several thousands of its members for doing exactly that.

BeautifulPeople.com, is a worldwide dating website that caters to attractive people and is known for actively keeping people out of their system whom they deem “ugly.” They do this by using a voting system that lets members of the opposite sex vote on an applicant’s pictures and profile. If the applicant is deemed attractive enough, they can then join the website.

Unfortunately for some 5,000 members that took in too much of the holiday spirit (and food apparently), they recently discovered that they were banned from BeautifulPeople.com for gaining too much weight after Christmas and New Years.

It seems other members on the website complained when some participants had posted images of themselves over the holidays and clearly showed they had gained some pounds. This led to action by the company to move the “newly chubby members,” according to Greg Hodge, Managing Director of the website, “Back to the rating stage,” which he adds, “This is the same as having them re-apply.”

Of those who did reapply, according to Hodge, only a few hundred were voted back into the site.

On the surface I have to admit that I was a little ticked about hearing that such a website existed. After all, in our politically correct society, how could something like a website keep out people based on looks alone? Isn’t that a little shallow? Yep. Is it illegal? Not at all.

If a website wants to limit membership to people that are voted in by looks – as long as the site is not a racist, I may disagree with it but I also say more power to them. It is their playground and if they want to stock their site full of shallow people, that is their business.

I look at it this way. I would love to get into Mensa, but unless I get a brain transplants that won’t happen anytime soon. Should I be mad at Mensa for setting a high standard of intellect for joining their group? Of course not.

I would warn BeautifulPeople.com and its membership, however. Remember that beauty is very subjective and individual tastes drift from time to time. This means what people find attractive one day could change the next and suddenly other members could find themselves on the chopping block.